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Judith Butler: Performative Acts and Gender Constitution
Background: Judith Butler is an American philosopher (from Ohio!) focused on gender theory, especially gender as a performative act. She also engages in Jewish activism as well as LGBT activism. Butler's theories on gender performance revolutionized feminist theory. Main Points: Butler theorizes that gender is not a natural classification but instead one enacted both by the performer and society. Questions: What line does Butler draw between gender and sex? How does Butler build on the work of Simone De Beauvoir, what is she adding? Why does Butler feel the need to point out that her theory of gender can be politicized for any end? Alyssa Burnett's Mini Essay!: In "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" Judith Butler is asserting that gender is not a physical, medical concept but instead a self and socially imposed concept. She draws on the arguments of Simone De Beauvoir. De Beauvoir argued that there was a distinct separation between sex, the physical genitalia one possesses, and gender, the societal instruction of actions and behaviors in typically feminine or masculine ways. Butler builds off this idea of gender as assigned and not phenotypic by adding that gender is performed, that we check a box for ‘woman’ and are then commented the properties of women. She states that “gender is an “act,” broadly constructed, which constructs the social fiction of its own psychological interiority” (908). In that she is saying that gender only exists and is upheld because we continue to perform it. It’s a cyclical process of performance, and the fact that it is performed keeps the concept of gender from becoming something concrete or legitimate, in Butler’s words “in its very character as performative resides of the possibility of contesting its reified status” (901). This is important because in western society gender is perceived to be a real and immovable, so by arguing that gender is only fixed because we continue to act as though it is is a revolutionary idea. The most interesting moment of Butler’s essay, to me, is the idea that this concept of gender is non-political. I would argue that in the 30 years after this essay was written gender has become a more heavily politicized topic but, regardless, I find this idea of dual politicization intriguing. Butler says “I can imagine this view being used for a number of discrepant political strategies” (908) which, to me, solidifies the concept. The idea that gender is both performed and that the concept can be used to discredit itself is important. Gender, to Butler, is constructed both in the present society as well as throughout history. Gender carries with it present-tense implications and historical implications, which Butler argues should be rectified through politics. She states that by politically un-defining gender and signifying that gender is enacted we can reach a state where we can theorize what a non-gendered society should look like. Butler points out that gender is acted through almost every act of our existence: the physical body, clothing, gestures, acts, usage of physical space, is gendered. So this idea of creating a non-gendered society is difficult to act upon, but seemingly non-partisan. This idea of historical pressure on modern gender relations and the continued action in those footsteps preserve the ideas of female subservience and male domination. Butler argues that these concepts are inherent in human nature but creations of the cycle of gender performance. Butler states that a genderless existence would be preferable for both parties involved, both men as dominating forces and women as subservient ones would do better for a non-gendered society. While not directly interacting with post-colonial studies in the terms of race Butler is relying on those same ideas of undoing that which history implies is permanent but is, in fact, just the continuation of toxic historical cycles of gender relations.